


Shake Your Tailfeathers

by quipquipquip



Category: Batgirl (Comic), Batman (Comics)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-10
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 08:11:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/317682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quipquipquip/pseuds/quipquipquip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick and Steph team up to take down an orally-obsessed serial killer with a taste for blond girls. Dickbats has avoided working with the new Batgirl, but this time he doesn't have a choice. Set just after Batman: Black Mirror, and before the end of Steph's Batgirl run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

As far as undercover gigs went, an assignment at a popular nightclub was cake. Most undercover jobs required extensive costuming and acting, which was time-consuming and mentally exhausting. In Dick's opinion, the only thing worse was an outdoor stakeout in foul weather---he'd harbored an intense dislike for any and all stakeouts since his early Robin days. His costume choices over the years hadn’t been tooled toward warmth. Ever an aerialist, he gravitated toward cuts and fabrics that were streamlined and light. They were great for flying, but useless in bad weather.

Dick should’ve appreciated getting a chance to dress down and blend into a familiar old environment. There’d been a time not so long ago where he’d enjoyed going to clubs, but this was far from being a night for fun and letting loose.

First off, the place was called the Crow Bar. The lit-up sign out front had a black bird perched on the rim of a martini glass, but that wasn’t what he thought of when he heard the name. No, he thought about the heft of the metal tool that’d gotten him out of the Mirror House. He thought about the blood that stained the curved end of it, old and flaking, and the tuft of black hair he’d found caught in the fissure.

Those weren’t the kind of thoughts that fostered a pleasant clubbing experience, but Dick was there on business, anyway. He was there because it was common knowledge that the Crow Bar attracted a certain type of clientele---it was popular for the twenty-somethings, and did a brisk business in under-the-table call girl service. The girls were young, and some of them purposefully dressed and held themselves to look even younger. Marcel Gibson liked them young and desperate, and Dick had it on good authority that the mob boss was a regular at the Crow Bar.

Marcel Gibson, also known as Mister Matchmaker, was an up-and-comer in the Gotham underworld. He mainly dealt in skin, gaining a reputation in some circles for being the man you went to when you had a lot of money and some very exacting tastes. If he didn’t have a trick who fit the client’s needs, he procured one. At least two dozen kidnappings over the past year had been unofficially linked to Marcel, but he’d slid through the fingers of the justice system like he was coated in oil.

Marcel watched the girls, and Dick watched Marcel. Mister Matchmaker had some information that he needed, and if he could get him alone, he’d provide just the person Batman wanted.

Unfortunately, the direct approach wouldn’t work. There were entirely too many people for that, so he’d have to take it at an oblique angle.

Dick’s gaze settled on the back of a woman who truly looked like she was there to dance. There were always a portion of the bar-hopping crowd that said that they went to clubs just to dance, but a large chunk of that group said that to sound less desperate. For the majority of club patrons, they had two reasons to be there: booze and potential partners. It was a peacock display, and Dick had shaken his tailfeathers with the best of them.

But this girl, she was dancing like she didn't want a partner. She didn't have a drink in hand, and she moved with precision---no sloppy careening, no flail-waving. There was a high chance that she hadn't been drinking at all. As he watched, a guy approached her. He couldn't hear the exchange over the music and the angle was wrong to read lips, but she threw her head back and laughed. Her potential suitor slinked away to find another lady to try his luck with.

The girl was at a perfect vantage point to discreetly watch Marcel. She had her back to him, but that was enough to admire right there---she had a pretty heart-shaped ass, wriggled into a pair of too-short, shredded denim Daisy Dukes. Her wavy blond hair was loose over her shoulders, a cornsilk ripple when she turned.

Blondes weren't his thing, but Dick liked a challenge. Plus, it'd work to his favor if he didn't have to keep up an involved conversation with her. He was there for Marcel, and there was no getting around that. He wasn't going to be taking anyone home. Hell, it’d been at least six months since the last time he’d brought home a near-stranger. It’d been empty and awkward, not the release and relaxation he’d been looking for. His secrets had multiplied over the years, layering atop each other, so intimacy with strangers could only be physical.

That wasn’t good sex. Not to him. So he’d taken a voluntary dry spell, focusing on the job Bruce had given him. Being the Batman of Gotham kept him more than busy.

He bought two drinks---a virgin mojito for himself, and a lemon drop for her---and approached the dancer. The beat vibrating through his ribcage reminded him of why he loved clubbing. He sidled up to her, pasting on his most winning smile. Dick was no idiot---he knew he was a good-looking man, and he knew how to use that to his advantage. There was a certain amount of pride in that, but he never let himself use his powers for evil.

"Hey there," he said, after weaving through the crowd with the drinks in hand.

The girl turned, and Dick's throat closed up.

It was Stephanie. The blond with the gorgeous heart-shaped ass in the Daisy Dukes was Stephanie Brown: former Spoiler, fired Robin, current Batgirl. Her blue eyes widened slightly in recognition, then a blithe smile spread across her face.

"Hi!" She chirped. "I'm Constance!"

And she was undercover.

Dick tossed back the lemon drop and handed her the virgin mojito.

"And I'm Robbie," he said, in such a way that meant _and I'm not playing around, Stephanie_. "Robbie Malone."

Her smile hardened. "Oh, yeah. I know the Malones."

This was not going as planned. Why was she here? Neither Proxy nor Oracle would have set her on this case. He'd made sure that they knew that this was not a mission for all the little vigilante boys and girls---Bruce had been adamant that this was his case. Tim was assigned to something else, Damian was with Alfred, and Stephanie was supposed to be working recon by the docks. Or something. Proxy wasn't big on keeping the Batmans and Robin in the loop.

But here she was, in the optimal position to watch Marcel. He was split between being annoyed and impressed.

"What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like?" Stephanie laughed, tossing her hair. "I'm working it!"

"I don't think you should be here," he said, voice tight. It was his Bat-voice, his serious voice, his _listen up_ voice.

She didn't flinch. He took her by the elbow and steered her toward an alcove. It’d be easier to talk when they weren’t getting jostled by the other dancers. She jerked her arm out his hand, her eyes very bright.

"I don't think I'm who you think I am, Robbie. I have every right to be here tonight."

Each word was hard. Punctuated. _I. Have._ Every. _Right._

"Aside from being underage and in on a fake ID?"

"I have this," she hissed, just loud enough to carry to him. "I figured it out. Let me work with you. You need a reason to get close to the Matchmaker without looking like a solo creeper, right? Right. Because right now, you’re solo creeper material. I saw you looking at me from the bar, and I said to myself, _creep alert._ Which I rescind, but my point still stands."

He hated it, but she had a point. Bruce would've sent her home regardless, but Dick wasn't quite as positive in his ability to handle the situation on his own---another point he hated to admit. Guiborg’s toxin was still working its way out of his system. His emotions were running high---this case was bad, this case was sick, this case needed to end _tonight_ \---so he had to acknowledge the risks he was taking. Stephanie wasn’t responding to the Bat-voice of authority, so trying to convince her to go would probably be more of a headache than it was worth.

"You follow my lead," he said in his best no-nonsense voice. "And you don't argue. This is a big deal, Connie."

"As serious as twelve dead prostitutes and counting," she agreed in an undertone. "I'm very aware of the dead hookers. You’re here tonight because you’re hoping that Mister Matchmaker over there will lead you to the back alley sawbones he and his crew have been employing, because you’re almost positive that it’s Sugar Tooth---aka Sander Sharp, aka the Tooth Fairy killer."

So, Steph hadn't stumbled into this one blindly. She'd done a bit of detective work on her own---a good amount of detective work, to have put things together. Neither Proxy nor Bruce would have assigned her to a case he was already working, so the newest Batgirl was showing a healthy amount of initiative.

He would have applauded it, but she didn't have a great track record when it came to the cases that she took on her own. The thought coated the inside of his mouth with a metallic aftertaste.

She must have picked up on that---it must’ve shown on his face. Stephanie set her jaw stubbornly.

“B-girl’s a prostitute’s best friend. She’s nailed more than one crooked pimp, so the girls are good at keeping her informed when their friends leave with a trick and never come back. One of B-girl’s contacts was Courtney Woodard. She was a part of Gotham County High’s class of 2009---if she’d made it until graduation. She dropped out of school in her sophomore year.” Stephanie glanced away, her eyes hooded by her long, mascara-thick lashes. “Courtney had a baby. Kept it. Never got her high school diploma. She was Sander’s eighth victim, and I went to school with her.”

She didn’t elaborate any further than that, but Dick got it. She’d pursued this one on her own, because this was something personal for her. It’d reminded her that despite appearances, she was one of the lucky ones. If her teenage years had played out just a little bit differently, Courtney Woodard could have easily been Stephanie Brown.

“We talked with the girls already,” Dick said, trying to steer the conversation away from the dead street walkers.

He’d found two of the bodies himself. An accidental killer and a thorough madman before his brief stint in Arkham, Sugar Tooth had only escalated since he’d gotten out. Like most serial killers, he was gaining momentum. The cool-down time between kills shrank, and his grisly methods became ritualistic.

The murders that he’d committed before Robin had hauled him in had been practice runs---experimental, but safe in their randomness. Now, Sharp picked up girls who reminded him of his twin daughters---blond hair, blue eyes, and big smiles---and cut and pulled and twisted until he completely ruined their mouths. The Joker had murdered his daughters, and their huge, frozen smiles had become the center of Sharp’s homicidal oral obsession. Removing at least four of his victim’s front teeth, top and bottom, prior to killing them was his signature.

The image had stuck with Dick. Gotham always found new ways to get under his skin.

“B- _man_ talked _at_ the girls. B- _girl_ listened _to_ them,” Stephanie said, with pointed emphasis. “You know what the COD was, don’t you? They choked to death. He pulled out their teeth, so they couldn’t _bite down_ when he---”

“Yeah, I know. I know,” Dick interrupted, gently squeezing her shoulder. She looked nauseated. Well, she wasn’t the only one who got reflexively sick at the thought of Sugar Tooth’s final act of torture.

That’s why Dick wanted it to end that night. No more cut-up, violated girls. Not when the key to stopping Sharp’s spree was literally standing right in front of them.

The music switched over, the moody-slow grind picking up in beat. Steph took a cleansing breath, stepping closer to him.

"Okay,” she said, “So here's the plan---"

"I thought that we established that I'm the man with the plan.”

"I've been casing this for the last two hours. I have a plan. And it's a good one."

"On what kind of scale?" Dick said, massaging his forehead. He’d been so positive that benching Damian would be his biggest headache of the night.

"Have a little faith in me,” Steph begged, grabbing his wrist. “Just an eensy-weensy little sliver. That's all I'm asking. Okay?"

"I've got more than that," he said, and meant it.

Her very blue eyes flicked up to look at him intently. That little crease in her brow said that she was trying to figure out if he was being sarcastic or not. He smiled faintly, and she understood.

"Okay," she started again. "Like I was saying. The best way to make sure nobody pays attention to us is to make _everyone_ pay attention to us."

Oh, Bruce was going to read him the riot act over this one. He could just feel it.

"Withholding judgment of this plan until you go on," he said, shaking his head.

"Thanks. Marcel's hired slabs of manmeat are keeping their eyes peeled for suspicious sorts, right?"

"Right."

"So, if we make it really clear that we're not interested in him, they're not going to be interested in us. We wait to turn the screws on Marcel until we’ve got a good angle. He’ll sing, and, well. It’s gross, but I’m Sharp’s ‘type’. If it comes down to that, I can be the rabbit.”

Years of conditioning kept his visceral reaction internal. The memory of Steph cut up and _dead_ furled behind his closed eyes. He’d seen the pictures in her file, taken by Batman before he’d left her in Leslie’s care. Dick had opened the file exactly one time, when he’d been restructuring the Batcave’s computer system during the move. He’d read it through, from beginning to falsified end.

Then he’d buried it. Early in his training, Damian had asked him for access to his predecessors’ files---and Stephanie had been Robin number four, no matter how much they avoided talking about it. He’d lied and told him that the file was corrupt. Everything that Damian knew about Stephanie was what Dick himself had told him. As critical as Damian was of his father’s allies, he didn’t want to give him a reason to taunt Stephanie about her short, painful stint as a Girl Wonder.

Guilt swelled in his throat.

“It _won’t_ come to that.”

“But---but look, I've _studied_ up on you, Robbie. I know that distraction tactics are kind of your thing." Stephanie paused, giving him a wobbly-embarrassed smile. _"Were_ your thing, before the Bat-thing became your thing. Think you can dust your old thing off for the next twenty minutes?"

He hated to say it, but the plan had merit. He'd been going at it from the angle that Bruce would have chosen, but he wasn't Bruce. Especially not right then, right there. If they---and it was _they_ , at this point---were going to pull this thing together, he’d have to go at it the way he would’ve back in his fingerstripe days.

"Okay, I'll give. It’s a better plan than the one I was winging. But you still need to follow my lead. Trust me."

"I do," she said.

And the hell of it was, he could tell that she meant it.

Dick took a deep breath. The music swelled, the drop boomed, and he exhaled.

Time to put on a show.

He had to relax, had to push back the knowledge of who he was with and why he was there. Good thing was, Dick was a born entertainer. He could assume and drop a persona with ease, with or without the prompting of a spotlight. It was one part confidence, one part charisma, and one dangerous little dash of exhibitionism---mix it all together and you got a lifelong performer.

It was in his blood. It worked to his favor just as often as it worked against him.

Dick hooked his fingers in the belt loops of her Daisy Dukes and _tugged_. A flicker of surprise chased itself around her face. She took her own deep breath, sliding her arms around his neck as he pulled her in close.

“You have an unfair advantage when it comes to this,” she informed him, her hips starting to sway and roll with the beat. He guided her closer to him, his hands still curled over the arch of her hips.

“How so?”

Dick couldn’t help but notice how short her Daisy Dukes really were. A bead of sweat rolled down her neck and disappeared into the cleavage that he _also_ couldn’t help but notice. Her club outfit was the girl-next-door kind of revealing, just shorts and a tank-top. Not too eye-catching, but enough to blend in with the regulars. Not a bad disguise, really.

But he had a hard time convincing himself that there was a wrong time for Daisy Dukes, so he wasn't a reliable judge of disguises.

“Are you kidding? This is the natural habitat for a guy like you. You’re like the muse that all club songwriters dedicate their music to. Just about any song that they play could be your jam,” Steph said, then gave a startled little buck into him as he slid his hands into the back pockets of her shorts. He rocked her against him, turning to keep a casual eye on the Matchmaker.

“While I’m flattered, I think that’s kind of an exaggeration.”

“I’ll prove it. Listen to the lyrics of the next song. If they’re in no way applicable to you or your life, I owe you ten bucks. I bet that you’ll even know all the words, though.”

Dick gave a snort of amusement, another twist and push angling them closer to their target. She had his leg between hers, her smooth thighs hugging his.

“I’ll take that bet,” he said. About twenty seconds later, the song changed.

The opening bars to LMFAO’s ‘Sexy and You Know It’ bounced.

And Steph had been absolutely right. He liked the song, _and_ he knew all of the words---it was on his workout mix, because it made Damian look like he’d bitten into a lemon every time it came on. It was a good thing that ten bucks wouldn’t break the Wayne family bank.

“Girl, look at that body,” he belted, off-key and animated. Points for showmanship. _“I work out.”_

Stephanie beamed triumphantly, sliding her hands down his chest.

“I rest my case.”

He smirked cheekily back at her. “So, by _your_ logic, ‘Sexy and You Know It’ is my theme song?”

“Hey, I think I can say that you are an aesthetically pleasing member of the opposite sex without it being weird,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “There’s a bigger age gap between you and Babs than with you and me.”

And, _moving on._ That was not something he wanted to think about, much less touch on. She’d been Tim’s ‘It’s Complicated’ for entirely too long for him to entertain that thought.

“You’re good at this,” Dick said, breathing in her dizzyingly sweet hair as she pressed her back against his chest and stomach. She wasn’t wearing perfume or anything---it was just the smell of her cheap, dollar-store shampoo. It was coconut-scented, cloyingly sweet when mixed with the tang of her sweat.

“I started making bad decisions at an early age,” Steph said with a breathless little laugh. She reached behind her, tracing the arch of his neck until her fingers knotted in the sweat-damp hair at his nape. His stomach muscles jumped at the feeling of her pulling his hair. She really _was_ good at this. It’d been an honest compliment.

“You’re talking to the kid who started practicing on the tight rope as soon as he learned how to walk,” he grinned. He was beginning to loosen up, the seriousness of the situation momentarily dismissed. They had to really sell this, and that meant laughing and touching. Practiced eyes could see the difference between genuine laughter and heavy petting and forced, artificial attempts at seeming genuine. Fortunately, he loved dancing, and she was turning out to be an excellent partner.

He found himself wondering how Tim had survived dating her for as long as he had. When she got going, Steph was a firecracker. Back when Tim had told him that the girlfriend he’d only kissed a couple of times was pregnant, he’d figured that little brother Timmy had gotten tangled up with a girl a whole lot more worldly than him. Then he’d met her, and she’d seemed fairly conservative and bubbly, so he’d amended that pre-first impression. But the way her hips were rocking against him revealed a Steph that had definitely sown her share of wild oats.

Dick made a mental note of it. For future reference.

He sized up Marcel's bodyguards through the tangled nest of her hair. Tucking a loose hank behind her ear, he whispered, "They keep scanning the front. Think they're expecting someone?"

"Roger that, B-man. I'd go so far as to call that suspicious behavior."

The words had barely left Steph’s mouth when the front window imploded. Glass pelted the grinding bystanders. Screams drowned out the bass, and the crowd on the dance floor heaved like a single, undulating mass of terror.

Adrenaline spiked and sizzled. Their show had been canceled, and now it was time to cut to a different role. His first instinct was to keep Steph from getting trampled underfoot---a silly impulse, maybe, since she could more than take care of herself. But instincts were instincts, and protectiveness was hardwired into Dick. He pushed her against a wall, bracing himself over her. The terrified drunks were streaming for the exits, so they had to wait for the tide to thin a little before they moved against it.

“What now?” Steph whisper-shouted, struggling to be heard over the din.

“We figure out what that was---what the hell just happened. If Marcel’s gone, the mission’s a bust.”

Her mouth tightened and bunched. She didn’t like that answer. Well, neither did he, but another angle or opportunity to pin down Sugar Tooth would present itself. Marcel wasn’t the only mobster monopolizing on Sharp’s cheap, brutal talents.

The music cut with a squeal of feedback. A woman sobbed out a strangled plea for someone to call 911.

Steph focused on something over his left shoulder, her eyes bright and sharp. She ducked under his arm and slipped into the seething crowd. Dick followed---a well-placed elbow here, a respectful-but-firm push there---and she led him to where the explosion had originated. Several of the injured people were lucky---bleeding, but their lives weren’t in immediate danger.

One of the men hadn’t been lucky at all. He’d been standing away from the window, so the shrapnel had hit his back. One of the bigger chunks of glass pane must have caught him. The man moaned from the floor, the left leg of his jeans saturated and stiff with blood.

“Hi,” Steph said, pushing past his shrieking date and kneeling beside the injured man. Dick moved seamlessly behind her, swooping in to calm the frantic woman. He would have gone for the man himself, but Steph’s body language was screaming _I got this_ , and they didn’t have a lot of time to screw around. Not with how quickly the sticky red pool was spreading. “I’m Connie. If you’ll let me, I can help you.”

Asking for consent? She might not have _actually_ been a nurse---wasn’t her mom one, though?---but she did know the steps.

“Help,” he croaked, his face ashen. “I’m bleeding.”

“You sure are, sport,” she said, inspecting the chugging wound. She guided his hands beneath his knee, pushing them into his thigh. “Press hard. Your popliteal artery might’ve been sliced. Hence the blood and the bleeding. You---we need to---”

She twisted around to look at Dick.

"Condom!" Stephanie shouted, making a jerky grabby motion at him. "Stat! If you've got one, hand it over!"

He knew better than to question her. That was one of the things that training with Bruce did to a person---it sucked the backtalk and questions out of them during moments of danger and high stress. Asking questions wasted time. Asking questions got people killed.

Dick pulled his wallet from his back pocket---the contents of it adding up to a forged ID and the various credit cards belonging to Robert Thaddeus Malone---and found the 'just in case' condom he kept tucked in the billfold. Bruce stressed all levels of preparedness.

Stephanie tore the foil open with her teeth, pulling the condom long and tight between her pinched fingers. She rolled it, twisting it into a thin band. Keeping the tension, she wrapped it tightly around the man's thigh and knotted the ends together.

A makeshift tourniquet. _Good girl._

"That'll hold until the ambulance gets here," she said, sitting back on her heels. She wiped her sweaty forehead with the inside of her wrist, bloody fingers curled carefully away. "You're lucky that Robbie here believes in safe sex."

Steph caught his eye and smiled. She looked a little bit like a kid with a good report card. _See what I learned?_

The paramedics burst in, giving them just enough clamoring noise and energy to cover their escape. He took her wrist and tugged gently.

"C'mon. That’s our cue."

It was Marcel’s cue, too. He started bellowing the keening, long vowels of wordless horror. Dick’s head whipped to follow the sound. The mob boss had moved to the front, kneeling inside the frosted field of shattered glass. He was bent over something---over some _one._

A body. A young woman’s body. Marcel was covering her face protectively, but Dick didn’t have to see it to confirm her mutilation. Her matted blond hair was enough of a giveaway.

 _“My girl!”_ the big man howled. _“THAT FUCKER TOOK MY GIRL!”_

Dick tugged Steph’s wrist, this time sharply.

“Educated guess: Marcel and Dr. Sharp are no longer doing business together,” he said, more or less dragging her toward the exit. “We have to catch up with him, and we’ve got to do it _now.”_

“We?” She repeated in a surprised little whisper-hiss.

He glanced at her over his shoulder. “You have your suit, right?”

“Right. Suit’s in my car,” Steph said, doing her best to keep up with his longer stride. “I can be ready to go in forty-five seconds or less. I’m game for being a we.”

“Perfect,” Dick said, and signaled the Batmobile. “If there’s a trail, we’ll find it.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Stephanie’s expert opinion, Batman was tripping _serious balls._

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a trail to pick up. The nightmare dentist’s compulsive cleanliness hadn’t deteriorated as much as the rest of his mind, so he didn’t make the mistakes that madmen were prone to. Fortunately for them, his oral obsession hadn’t weakened any, so it was easy to compile a list of his potential hideouts---ones that were within a few miles of the Crow Bar took first priority. A large number of the bodies had been recovered from Rogers Yacht Basin, which narrowed it down even further.

Steph had sent the Compact back to Firewall as soon as she’d gotten zipped into her suit, hopping into the passenger’s seat of the Batmobile for the first time in years. If she felt uncomfortable there, she did a good job of hiding it.

The Batgirls were as different from each other as the Robins were similar. Each one was visibly unique. Babs had been riotous red hair and catchy yellow accents, Cassandra had been a stitched-up black shadow, and Stephanie was something between the two---loose blond hair and eggplant stripes. She briefed him on everything that she had found out on her own, piecing together a couple of leads that even he hadn’t connected. Her contacts on the street really did trust her, and that was valuable stuff. Many of the citizens who lived in the gray area between law and lawlessness, desperate and gridlocked by their own circumstances, resented the Bats---or feared them. But this Batgirl had a way with people that the ones before her hadn’t.

They hit paydirt at the Kane Candy Factory. One of the many derelicts left from the days of good and plenty, the factory mouldered on the edge of Amusement Mile. It was the gimmicky hybrid of a processing plant and a tourist trap---there had been bi-hourly tours during its golden age.

When Robin had busted him, Sharp had still been nomadic. This set-up screamed care and premeditation. He’d made most of his kills there, by the look of things. The good doctor kept his victims alive for some time, their struggles chronicled by the long scratches that their manacles had gouged in the metal pipes. The dentist’s chair in the middle of the room was stained a patchy rust-red.

Dr. Sharp was standing with his back to them, carefully cleaning some of the tools he had been using earlier that evening. A very thin, very pale man with slicked-back hair, he looked a little bit like an immaculately kept corpse. His movements were small, rigid, and precise; he cleaned each wicked instrument until the water ran pinkish, then clear. He had the tool kit of every nightmare dentist in every slasher flick put together---nothing but tapering silver handles, corkscrews, pliers, and blades.

Batgirl made a thin, anguished little sound from beside him. He glanced at her sidelong.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I.” She didn’t blink, didn’t look away from the tools of Sugar Tooth’s trade. “I’m good.”

He didn’t want to think about what had to be going through her head. Bruce would have recognized the potentially triggering ties to her past and sent her home. More and more, it felt like that was the call he should have made, too.

Too late to regret or rescind. The best he could do was make sure that nothing happened to her.

He signaled _follow me_ with two fingers, opening one of the skylights and carefully dropping into the room below. The factory still smelled faintly of chocolate, but it was cut with the nauseating stench of rot and decay. The tile floor was smashed in places, missing Pepto-Bismal-pink squares like shed scales, but at least it was dry. The lowest level of the building was flooded, bloated wrappers floating miserably in the standing water. Sugar Tooth had been selective when choosing his new ‘office’, so he had all of the possible amenities available in an abandoned factory: a mostly intact room with a small generator to power his many lamps and tools. It was cold as an icebox, making Dick’s legs prickle from the chill.

Sharp was a thin man without any combat training. He used the element of surprise to nab his victims, knocking them out before they could retaliate. As close as he was to his weapons, they were better off not announcing themselves. If they could sneak up silently and subdue him, they could end the whole thing relatively painlessly.

Batgirl paused when he did, crouching behind a storage tank. _You or me?_ she signed, jerking her chin at Sugar Tooth.

After a moment’s thought, he pointed to her. She grinned ferociously, moving forward with the utter silence that only years of training and a pair of silicon-soled boots could afford. Batgirl dipped her left hand into one of the pouches on her thigh holster, taking out an electro-batarang. She balled her right hand into a fist. The creak of her glove clenching alerted Sharp. He started to turn, and Dick started to move.

But Sugar Tooth was _fast._ Eerily so. He’d grabbed a scalpel when he’d twisted, so he stabbed into her in one smooth motion. Steph didn’t have a chance to block---he doubted she’d even seen the flash of silver before the weapon disappeared between her ribs.

Sharp had an eye for anatomy. Very precise. Stephanie wheezed wetly, blood trickling from the corners of her mouth. Then her eyes fluttered shut. Then she fell.

Sugar Tooth’s gaunt face pulled into a hideous grin. He had very big, very wide teeth---too many teeth for a human mouth, layered shark rows of teeth---and a dry, rusty cackle.

“So much better,” he hummed, looking down at the bleeding girl at his feet. Wreathed in red, Batgirl’s face had gone thoughtlessly slack, calm and smooth and rapidly draining of color. “So much better now that you aren’t baring your teeth, my dear. Not a crease or wrinkle to be found. Lovely.”

She was breathing. He was almost positive that she was still breathing. If he could end this quickly, he could get her help. Alfred would be able to handle an injury like that---he’d have the operating room prepped by the time Dick got Batgirl there.

Dick coiled up and surged at him, going for his throat. Sharp slashed; he ducked, barely missing him.

Sharp was fast. Too slippery-quick to be human. What had he done to himself since leaving Arkham? That was one thing that still unsettled Dick, even after all of the fights over all of the years: most of these monsters had been human, once. Human-shaped, they’d left humanity far behind.

Sharp’s new aggression suddenly made a lot more sense. He’d taken some kind of genetic fruit punch poison, the sort of Kool-Aid favored by Gotham’s wildest. As he watched, the doctor stretched and contorted, a wad of saltwater taffy with bones. Sharp got bigger. Thicker. His smile pulled almost literally to his ears.

“You’ll pay for this!” Dick snarled, dodging a swipe. _“You’ll pay for what you did to Batgirl!”_

Sugar Tooth was something straight out of his nightmares---ropey veins, bulging eyes, and too many teeth.

But that didn’t make sense. It didn’t _fit._ This wasn’t his M.O., wasn’t---

Wasn’t real? He was slipping. Another waking nightmare. But he couldn’t stop fighting---couldn’t stop moving. The enemy _was_ real. The enemy was dangerous. The enemy had hurt Batgirl, and this time he’d been there, he’d watched it happen, and he’d still been helpless to save her. Again. If there was one overarching theme to his life, one repeated motif, that was it: he couldn’t save them all. For every thousand lives he saved, one or two slipped through his fingers. It was those ones that stuck with him, because those were usually the ones that he’d been trying to hold onto the tightest.

Batgirl. He made himself focus on her, latching onto one of the few things familiar enough to be undeniably real. Leslie had told him that psychological anchors were the easiest way to ground himself when the nightmares crashed over his head and pulled him under.

He was Dick Grayson. That was a fact.

He was fighting Sugar Tooth. Also a fact.

Batgirl was injured---fact---breathing shallowly---conjecture. The handle of the scalpel still jutted from her. Her blood was slowly staining her hair a darker red.

He had to save her. _Had to._

 

*

 

In Stephanie’s expert opinion, Batman was tripping _serious balls._

She was at a loss to explain his behavior any other way. One minute, they were doing the team-up thing. It’d been going pretty well, too. He let Steph work out a little bit of her rage with her fists, fracturing a nice ratio of the bones in Sugar Tooth’s face. She’d been all ready for a nice segue into a victory dance, but then she’d turned around to find Dick mysteriously absent.

Half a breath later, he was coming at her like the proverbial bat out of hell, and it was all she could do to block and dodge. Judging from the gibberish he was snarling, he was in a particularly nightmarish iteration of la la land. The weird thing was, this little shift had happened _after_ they’d taken the perp out, so she was at a loss to explain it---or to fix it, for that matter.

Batman was tripping balls, and Steph was doing her level best not to end up a pretty little Bat-smear. Dick would feel really bad about it after his head cleared, and she didn’t want to do that to him. There was nothing quite like bat-guilt, and Dick was a nice guy. Plus, she wasn’t a big fan of getting the crap beaten out of her.

But just keeping a half-step ahead of him was insanely difficult. He looked like the Bat, but he wasn’t fighting like one. He barely kept both feet on the ground, coming at her from angles and flips and ricochets that made her feel like she was being attacked by a man-shaped pinball. She could barely keep up with where he was at, much less how to predict where he’d be next.

He moved like his cape weighed nothing---like he didn’t feel it there at all. Back when she’d been a regular visitor in the Batcave, Alfred had let her try on the cape, just once, and she’d wondered how Bruce managed to run and jump _at all_. It was thick, heavy and unwieldy. Her Batgirl cape was more like it than her Spoiler cape had been, but it was still thin by comparison.

Dick held himself back, she realized. This was how he wanted to fight---what was natural for him. But it wasn’t how _Batman_ fought, so he kept both feet on the ground.

So if he wasn’t Batman, who was he?

“Uh, Nightwing? Hi! Hello! Batgirl, here! Stop trying to rain down justice on me, please and thank you!”

No response. Not even a flicker of recognition on his face. He just kept coming at her, and Steph was rapidly realizing that the odds of her outlasting his endurance were low. Even just blocking him hurt. She’d be shocked if her forearms didn’t end up looking like opera gloves made entirely of bruises.

Well, it wouldn’t have been the first time she’d used long sleeves to keep things hid. Between Daddy and a couple solid years of vigilantism, she’d turned into a pro at covering up bruises. Not that she’d put that on her resumé or anything.

“Please don’t make me do this. I don’t want to do this!” She jerked back, barely missing getting clipped a kick that would’ve sent her on an unfortunate trip to visit Mom at work. “Always thought that slapping Batman would be awesome and therapeutic, but then I _actually did it._ Slapping Batman was terrifying! A lesser vigilante would’ve wet herself a little.” Ripping a primed batarang from her thigh-pouch, she jammed the trigger with her thumb and threw wild. “So please-please- _please_ don’t make me do this!”

“You’ll pay for this!” Dick roared, and the rawness in his voice startled the breath out of her. _“You’ll pay for what you did to Batgirl!”_

That little sentiment kicked the rest of the air out of her lungs.

Yeah, she wasn’t Cass. She wasn’t Babs. She _knew that._ But she still didn’t deserve to be dumped on for not being a super-scary-ninja-Batgirl or the golden-gorgeous-genius-Batgirl.

So she was the sometimes-subpar-mostly-spectacular-super-stubborn-eggplant-Batgirl.

So what? The haters could bite her adorable Bat-butt. She fought every bit as hard as the rest of them.

Dick flipped, twisting in mid-air to avoid the electro-gooperangs.

And she recognized that move. She’d seen it before. When she’d limped back home after excruciating hours training under Bruce, she’d curl up in bed with her dinosaur of a laptop and all the hot water bottles she could find and watch video after video of footage of the Robins that’d come before her. She’d been a tiny bit obsessive about it, trying to absorb everything that they were in the old training videos. Tim’s were the most informative, because he hadn’t had any previous training in martial arts and acrobatics---there’d been something very cathartic about watching her ex fall on his face. But she’d watched the clips of Dick countless times, because he’d been having the most _fun._ He’d made it all look effortless, like he was having the time of his life, like running around in his ridiculous scaly panties was the best thing in the entire universe. Gravity didn’t seem to apply to him. He was fearless, graceful in free-fall. Steph had watched him and wondered if all of them had been like her---a little bit in love with everything Dick had made Robin mean. His laughter and nimble acrobatics had promised _I’m Robin, and you can be, too!_

Steph sucked in a deep breath and screamed, _“STAND DOWN, ROBIN!”_ as loudly as she could.

And he paused. For just a fraction of a second, he looked at her and stopped moving.

That was all that she needed. Batgirl doubled up her trusty ol’ fist, made a few more mental apologies, and then punched him as hard as she could. She doubted that she’d get a second opening, so she had to give it her all. She just had to cross her fingers that she didn’t break anything essential. The cowl protected the bridge of his nose, so she didn’t aim to smash it---she went for his jaw, the largest uncovered part of him.

Her fist connected. His head snapped to the side, and he staggered, dazed.

She balled up her hand for another go---even though she’d felt the punch jar all the way up her shoulder---but he held up a hand in treaty.

“S’okay,” Dick croaked. “Don’t. God, who taught you that right hook? _Wildcat?”_

“Nope. Greg Lewis. I met him in detention in sixth grade---he only ribbed me about having a masked nutjob for a dad _one_ time. I’m sorry for your face,” Steph said, shifting her weight uneasily. Dick was still rubbing his jaw. Maybe she should have dialed it back just a hair. “Punching it, I mean. Since your face isn’t something to be sorry about.” She pursed her lips. “That’s a ‘you’re over-sharing, Batgirl’ look, isn’t it?”

“Are _you_ okay?” Dick asked---in his voice, not the Bat voice. There wasn’t any gravelly authority to it---just Dick Grayson worriedly asking if he’d hurt her. Steph fidgeted a little more earnestly.

“I’m fine. I think I burned somewhere in the ballpark of eight thousand calories trying not to end up in traction, but I’m good.” She paused, then hurriedly added: “And again, _really_ sorry that face-punching was my go-to method of problem solving.”

“It worked,” he said, straightening. His cheek was already very red, so it’d probably bruise. “Cleared my head. That’s what matters.”

“What the hell was that, even?” She demanded, throwing up her hands. Dick fisted his gloves in his cape, turning away.

“Later. Right now, getting Sharp to the authorities is our top priority.”

Well, wasn’t that just a classic _Batman_ reaction? Steph bit down on her irritation, clenching her still-throbbing fist. He was right---she knew that---but her history made her an itty bitty _tiny_ bit sensitive to brush-offs when they came from men wearing pointy ears.

 

*

 

The GCPD showed up in short order, only too happy to take Sugar Tooth off their hands. It took more than a few minutes of cleansing breaths for Dick to calm himself down. It'd been some time since he'd had a toxin flare-up, so he'd half convinced himself it'd flushed out of him entirely. Wishful thinking was tantamount to stupid thinking, and stupid thinking could have gotten Stephanie seriously injured. But it was a chicken and egg sort of problem. What would he have done if she hadn't been there to snap him out of it? Would it have triggered at all had she not been with him, a worry sitting firmly in the forefront of his mind?

He couldn't tell. Those questions didn't have answers, so he dismissed them and clung to the fact that the worst that'd come of it was a sore jaw. Stephanie seemed to know the detective that'd answered their call---a young guy for the position, kind of handsome, new to the precinct---so he let her handle the exchange.

If there was one nice thing about being the Bat, it was that you didn't have to talk if you didn't want to. Dick calmly returned to the Batmobile, threw up---the toxin left a taste in his mouth like lemons, rust, and battery acid; the adrenaline crash made his senses whine with nausea---and drank a bottle of water. By the time he'd finished it, Sharp was secured and on his way back to a cell.

Steph knocked on the passenger-side window, then opened the door.

"The GCPD says hi, and thank you for the serial killer. They promised to keep better track of him this time," she said, buckling herself in.

"'Course," Dick said shortly, and the engine turned over with a warm purr. "Don't they always?"

"We'd be out of a job if hoods weren't so good at escaping, so instead of getting worked up about it, I think of it as job security," Steph said, watching the derelict buildings streak past the window. Then she flicked a quick, curious glance at him.

 _Here we go._

"Y'know, I never got to team up with you when you were doing your own thing. So I've never really seen you in action up close. If you hadn't been trying to beat the bat out of me, I would've said that you put on a pretty spectacular show."

Her tone was cautious, conversational. Honest. She just wanted to talk. That was a rare trait in their kind of people.

"Yeah, I," Dick said, vaguely embarrassed for no real reason he could pinpoint. He'd broken character. He was lucky that she was the only one who'd seen it. "It's different, wearing this suit. _Being_ this mantle."

"You look way bigger," she blurted out.

"I was trying to convince Gotham that I was the real McCoy at first. I'm not as big as Bruce, so I wear a padded vest over my upper-torso to get 'the look'," he admitted, feeling a little less vague about his embarrassment.

Steph clapped a hand over her mouth, but not quickly enough to keep her laughter in. She snorted between her fingers.

“You wear a padded _Bat bra.”_

“It’s Kevlar. And I’m just trying to look more like...” he gestured, chopping the air in the rough shape of the Bat. “... _you know.”_

“Right. Right. ‘Cause not all of us can have Bruce’s mighty, straining pecs. Some of us have to pad our assets with a Kevlar-lined Bat bra. And now I know why Damian assumed my suit is padded.”

And Stephanie's suit being padded would do different things to her womanly curves, of course. He was going to have to have a talk with Damian about the things he pointed out to female vigilantes. He was not looking forward to when the kid hit puberty.

He caught himself eyeing the shape and weight of her breasts in her suit, trying to decide how much of that _was_ armor reinforcement. He might have looked for a second or two too long, because her grin widened.

Dick cleared his throat. “We’re not having this conversation, Stephanie.”

“Oh, I’m _Stephanie_ now?” She asked, her eyebrow arched. “Are you going to pretend to be the big adult here now that I’ve insulted your manly vigilante unmentionables?”

"No," Dick said, patient but _firm._ "We’re through with Sugar Tooth, so I'm going to take you home. And you're going to stay home for the rest of the night."

"Do you honestly think that's going to work with me? I saved your keister, and now you’re giving me the brush-off? Why?” Her voice raised up a sharp octave. “Because I asked you to tell me why you tried to pound my face in? I'm not your Robin, and you're not _him_."

She didn't have to say who _he_ was. There was only one _him_ , one _Bat_ , and no amount of Kevlar padding could change that.

"No. You need to respect that---"

"I do respect you! You're---you're you. I had a poster of you on my wall for years. Robin, Nightwing, Batman---you’ve led like eighteen teams, and you're the man. I won't argue with you on that one, period."

Dick opened his mouth to say something, but she just kept rattling on. It wasn't often that someone out-talked him.

"But frankly, I’ve gotten really tired of guys in pointy ears telling me to sit down and shut up and be okay with being left out of the loop. What would’ve happened tonight if I hadn’t been there to back you up? Have you thought about that?"

Dick heaved a loud sigh, pulling to the side of the road and stopping the car. It'd hit him, suddenly and painfully, that he was being too much of the Bat. How many times had he sat in the passenger seat of the Batmobile and tried ineffectually to get a rise out of Batman? It’d been so frustrating, his endless struggle to get it through Bruce’s head that he could work alone. It’d felt like he’d never earn his full trust and respect---that it wasn’t possible for Bruce to let anyone in.

And now Steph was the one in the passenger seat of the Batmobile, trying ineffectually to get a rise out of Batman. That wasn’t him. He wasn’t that Bat. Dick couldn’t ever let himself get that rigid, though the temptation was there. The pointy ears came with a lot of power and control issues.

But he wouldn’t let himself be that Bat. He could admit when he’d been wrong.

"Is this where I get out of the car and me and my big mouth hoof it the rest of the way home?" Stephanie asked uncertainly, a gloved hand resting on her buckle. Dick twisted in his seat.

"What? No. No, I just...wanted to say that I _was_ impressed with you tonight. You handled yourself well, Steph. You saved my bacon, and your quick thinking at the club saved that man's life. I wouldn't have used a condom."

As soon as it came out of his mouth, he regretted his wording. He had to suppress the urge to snort.

Thankfully, he didn't have to suppress it for more than half a second. Stephanie pressed her lips together, hard, trying to keep a smile pent up. She started laughing, flapping one hand.

"Sorry! Sorry, I know you were trying to have a moment, but the way you said that---!"

Dick chuckled with her, the tension draining out of him.

"For the record, I _never_ forget protection."

"Of course not. You're a well-prepared gentleman drilled in Bat-paranoia."

"Not that Bat-paranoia kept Bruce from reproducing," he sighed under his breath, thinking about the grilling that Damian would give him as soon as he got back. He loved the kid. Really, he did. But his Robin redefined stubbornness, and he was usually snippy for at least three days whenever he benched him. In an ironic twist, Robin got more worked up over being sidelined now than he had when he’d been grounded in the cave during his initial training. It wasn’t being left that made him angry---it was not being able to work with Dick. Suffice it to say, it wouldn’t be pretty when Damian heard that he’d teamed up with ‘Fatgirl’ instead of him.

But he’d jump off that bridge when he came to it.

"He can't help that the ladies want his hot bod. And his Bat-junk. And I don't know if I can keep talking about this, because there's at least a sixty percent chance that he's listening in. He's like---I don't know---" She gestured nebulously with both hands, wrists rolling. She talked with her hands, with her expressive eyes. It was kind of nice, patrolling with someone who didn't always have white-out lenses covering their eyes. "---like God. But more judgey. Batman is judgier than God. And I'm talking Old Testament God, here---not the New Testament reboot."

Dick burst into helplessly loud laughter. It was the kind of laughter where he didn't care about how he sounded, didn't care if it meant his stomach hurt, didn't care if he _brayed_ \---it was a release, and he needed it. That was how he'd always dealt with stress, but he'd forgotten that somewhere after hanging up the fingerstripes. He pulled back the cowl, wiping tears from his eyes.

"Thanks."

Her mouth parted slightly in surprise. "Thanks?"

"For the save. And the company tonight. You make a damn fine Batgirl." When she didn't say anything for an overlong minute---and she was like him; it said more when she wasn't talking than when she was---he added, "I mean it."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Sorry, I just." She blinked rapidly. Took a breath. "That means a lot. Coming from you, I mean. It's been a big bat-bra to fill, metaphorically."

Dick grinned, patting his chest. "I know exactly how you feel."

She returned his grin, relaxing back in her seat. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

"So," he said, when the air in the cab felt a little more breathable. "I'm starving. Do you want to get something to eat? I-Hop's open." Remembering that she still lived at home---still had a curfew, still had a _mother_ \---he quickly added, "Unless you have a certain time you turn into a pumpkin."

"It's winter break, and my mom won't be getting off shift until eleven.” Steph beamed. “Stuffing my face with some post-patrol carbs sounds awesome."

“I couldn’t agree more,” Dick said, and merged back into the thin trickle of early-morning traffic.

 

*

 

It said a lot about Gotham as a whole that the waitress didn't blink twice when Batman and Batgirl came in for waffles at five in the morning. Bruce had never made a habit of being seen in the suit, but Dick seemed to enjoy it. Maybe it took a little bit of the edge and mystery off the Bat, but it reaffirmed that there was a person inside the suit---a person who liked vast amounts of syrup on his waffles and who tipped generously. Batman Incorporated had pulled the Batman out of the shadows, but it was Dick who pulled him into the light. He was a Batman who smiled. Steph wouldn't have thought such a thing possible if she hadn't seen it herself.

And he had a funny smile. It pulled a little crookedly to the left, showing that this Batman had an imperfect smile and dimples. Getting out of their costumes would have been too awkward---the Batmobile didn't have much room in it, and Steph had left her change of clothes in the Compact---so they stripped off their gloves and ate with their masks still in place.

Batman was buying her waffles. If she’d thought such a thing possible, it would’ve been on her bucket list. She had to keep reminding herself that yes, this was a real thing that was really happening. She was eating breakfast with Batman and discussing why waffles were the best thing in the world. Maybe he wasn’t _the_ Bat---ever since Bruce had come back, they’d been running a multibat show---but it was pretty darn close.

“So, you _always_ get waffles?” Dick asked, dousing his second serving of breakfast with far more syrup than was necessary. She was not at all shocked that he didn’t worry about his caloric intake. His insane acrobatics had to burn a whole lot of fuel. “What about pancakes?”

“Okay, look. Pancakes are good. I like pancakes. You can put things in them, and variety is the spice of life. _But!”_ She jabbed the air with her fork for emphasis. “Do you know what waffles have? Pockets. Little square cubbies that lovingly hold as much syrup or butter--- _or even peanut butter_ \--- as you need to soothe your ails. Pancakes have a set saturation point, but waffles are looking out for you. They want you to be happy, and to have as much syrup as you want. It's been scientifically proven. Do you argue with science? No. Batman doesn't argue with science.”

“You’ve put a lot of thought into this,” Dick said, taking a sip of his coffee.

Steph shrugged. “I just have a lot of waffle-related feelings.”

“I noticed,” he said, and smirked at her over the rim of his mug.

She mashed a square of soggy waffle with the tines of her fork. Oh boy, were they ever in need of a subject change. Fortunately, she had an awkward one prepped and ready to go.

“You said that you’d tell me, so,” Steph said, evasively drawing little loops in the syrup puddle on her plate. “What happened tonight? Why’d you check out like that?”

Dick opened his mouth, then closed it. “You heard about the Mirror House case, right?”

She hadn’t. She had a vague notion that someone had mentioned the case to her in passing---oh, right, Tim had contacted Babs, said there was some kind of emergency, and O had hurriedly gotten off the line with only the briefest of explanations. They just loved to keep her in the loop.

The worst part of it was, Steph had a feeling that they didn’t consciously realize that they did it anymore. She’d expected that a time would come where she eventually win back the trust that she’d lost during her Africa adventure, but it hadn’t happened yet. This ‘family’ was all about holding onto the pieces of betrayal instead of pasting their bonds of trust back together. Keeping her at arm’s length was habit by now.

“Sure,” she lied through her teeth, because it was neither the place nor the time to open up that can of worms.

“I was dosed with a nightmare gas,” he said in a low tone that barely carried. “Helfern's or Crane’s or a hybrid of the two---they couldn’t tell. It should've turned my brain to soup, but I survived. Thing of it is, it’s still working its way out of my system, and stress can bring on hallucinations. So that was...what that was about.”

“Why were you stressed? Sugar Tooth was in the bag.”

Dick took the time to chew a bite, then chase it with a gulp of coffee.

“I could tell that his instruments were triggering to you. Fear makes you vulnerable, and I wanted to make sure you didn’t get hurt,” he said with a wry twist of his lips. “Kind of backfired, huh?”

Steph almost dropped her fork in surprise. She’d always got the impression that Dick was one of the more considerate kids to survive having Bruce Wayne as a mentor, but she hadn’t expected him to remember... _that._ Well, no, she expected him to remember it, because nobody had let her forget what had happened, but she hadn’t expected him to give a crap about what needles and torture instruments did to her head.

“Nah. I mean, you’re the one that ended up punched in the face, not me,” she said the a smile that probably wobbled a little precariously. “But, uh. Thanks. For the thought. It totally counts.”

Steph’s utility belt vibrated noisily. Putting down her fork, she pried open the compartment and took out her cell phone. As soon as she saw her mother’s number on the screen, her stomach sunk down to the toes of her reinforced boots.

“Wuh mimft?” Dick asked through his indecently large mouthful of waffles.

Steph braced herself, then answered the phone. “Hi! Did you get off work early?”

“Stephanie Alice Brown,” her mother said. Starting off with her full name right from the get-go? Oh, boy. She was in for it. “Where are you?”

“Oh, you know,” she said, smiling nervously. “Study group.”

“Finals were two weeks ago, oh precious daughter of mine.”

“And you are absolutely correct. When I said study group, I meant my friend from Metropolis’ study group. I’m spending a couple of days with her, and we’re hanging out with intellectually-motivated like minds. I told you about this ages ago.”

Ugh. She _hated_ lying to Mom. She absolutely loathed it. Steph could lie easily and convincingly to anyone else on the planet, but it was difficult to fool her mother.

She heard her sigh. Imagined her on the other end of the phone line, pinching the bridge of her nose. Frowning like that deepened the wrinkles around the corners of her mouth and across her forehead. It made her look _old._

“Tell Kara hi from me,” Mom said, sounding tired. Of course she was tired. She was working herself half to death trying to put her through school. That was why Steph worked _herself_ half to death to keep her grades up. “And leave me a sticky note or something next time. Okay, sweetie?”

“I will,” Steph said. Quietly, she added, “I love you, oh precious mother of mine.”

“Love you, too. Keep me updated on when you’re coming home.”

“Uh-huh. Will do. Bye.”

She hung up, putting her phone back into its little compartment. Dick had his elbow on the table, his chin resting on his hand. He was smiling that goofy crooked smile at her again.

“Checking in with the Batmom?”

Steph’s cheeks heated.

“Batmom came home early and saw that I wasn’t there. I had to tell a tiny fib about having a sleepover at Supergirl’s house. My secret identity is safe, but I’m sleeping in my car tonight.” Steph sighed, pushing the soggy remnants of her waffle around. “The sacrifices we make for this town. _Geeze.”_

“No need. I’ve got a couch,” he said, snagging a corner of her waffle with his fork. He popped the bite into his mouth. “You’re welcome to it. Full disclosure: I don’t have as much braidable hair as Supergirl, so it might not be as fun of a sleepover. But I’m not above gossiping about the cute boys.”

Was he serious? He was serious. She was at least seventy percent sure that he was serious.

“I love couches,” Steph said, nodding. It wasn’t her most eloquent moment. Not that she regularly had tons of eloquent moments---she was the master of foot-in-mouth-fu.

“To the Batmobile,” Dick said, polishing off her waffle. “But let me get the check before we go. Last thing we need is to make people think that the Bats dine and dash.”

The idea of a Batman that smiled was still difficult for Steph to wrap her head around, but she was starting to warm up to the concept.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dear Diary: today, I punched an evil serial killer dentist in the mouth, and I didn’t even make one joke about dental hygiene. Then, I punched Batman. Then Batman bought me breakfast and invited me to a sleepover, so I went over to his swanky penthouse. And then I called him a Disney princess, and I started wondering why he’s even humoring me, Diary.

“Thanks again,” Steph said, for the ninth or tenth time. Once she’d gotten a good look at where Dick lived, she’d realized that his penthouse was more opulent than any hotel room she’d ever been in. That _included_ the awesome place that Bruce had booked for her during her assignment in England. His living quarters in the Wayne Foundation Tower were insanely great. They weren’t exactly homey, but she could see that Dick had made some attempts at making the space look like it belonged to him. Various diplomas were in frames on the walls---school, police academy, and other outstanding achievements. For someone who had lived most of his life with a billionaire, his place was very sparse.

And she understood that mindset, that way of living. From ages eight through sixteen, Steph had consciously monitored her belongings, and hadn’t wanted to own anything that she couldn’t stuff into a backpack and take with her. There was a kind of comfort in that---in knowing that if things ever got too bad for her to handle, she could pack her life into one bag and disappear forever. Unfortunately for her, she’d had a sickeningly high tolerance for _bad_ , so she’d never run away for more than a night---and only if her father was drunk, and never if it meant leaving her mom alone with him. Her loyalty and stubbornness had always been kind of mixed up.

But Dick didn’t live sparingly because he had to move to keep safe, but because moving was what was familiar to him. He was a circus boy, after all, so pulling up stakes was probably just natural for him.

A large, old poster had been tacked up in his room. A man, a woman, and a little boy with dimples smiled and posed together, haloed by a spotlight. The looping text under them read, _The Flying Graysons_.

When Dick had been a tiny circus boy, he’d been a _tiny_ circus boy.

Gentleman that he was, he’d offered to take the couch and let her sleep in his bed. Dick’s bed was bigger and more comfortable than she had previously thought was physically possible for a bed to be. Her twin-sized bed with its lumpy spring mattress would never satisfy her again, now that she’d seen how the more affluent vigilantes lived.

But, she rationalized, if her bed felt as great as his, she’d have trouble getting out of it. Like, ever. Dick had to have amazing self-control. If it’d been her bed, she would sleep fourteen hours a day, eating at least two out of three meals while still in it. The idea of eating leftover Chinese food in a bed that nice actually got her mouth watering, even though she’d just already eaten breakfast.

“Hey, don’t mention it,” Dick said, giving her his most winning smile. It was the kind of smile that made her fingers tingle and her toes curl up. If it wasn’t the smile he turned on the world at large, she would have thought that he was flirting with her.

But she knew better. Didn’t she? Yeah, she knew better than to think that Dick Grayson was flirting with her.

She couldn’t even entertain that particular delusion for long, so she looked back at the poster on the wall.

“You wanna know something crazy? I’ve never been to the circus.”

“Really?” Dick asked, like he couldn’t possibly _imagine_ someone making it to adulthood without going to see the circus. She shrugged.

“We weren’t exactly the Cleaver family. Daddy was a career criminal, and Mom didn’t kick her pill habit until three years ago. We didn’t do vacations, or family outings.”

“There’s not a thing out there like it,” Dick said, and there was a wistfulness in his voice that made her heart press against her ribs.

“I thought about running away and joining the circus more than once,” she said. “And considering that I run around in a costume doing acrobatics all night, maybe I kinda did.”

“In some ways, it’s not that different. I can blame most of my life choices on circus blood,” he said, shaking his head. “I...think about it, sometimes. How I got here. Why I stay here. Why this is important to me. And I think a lot of it goes back to my blood.”

“Circus blood?” Steph echoed, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. He was looking at the poster, not at her. She had to wonder how he felt when he saw pictures of himself still tiny and bracketed by his parents.

“I’m Roma,” he said, his voice low. It wasn’t the excitable bounce that she’d mentally correlated with Nightwing and Robin, nor was it the rough snarl that he took on with the Bat-ears. It was the voice of a man quietly offering a memory. He wasn’t _being_ anyone. “Through my father. And I was raised in an environment where the lifers were family, and family meant everything. Privacy was underrated, and noise was just expected. You weren’t alone. There was this _shame_ in being alone, because it meant you’d done something to alienate you from the group.”

And yeah, Steph had noticed a long time ago that, like Damian, Dick wasn’t skim-milk white. It hadn’t been something worth bringing up, because it felt rude to ask _what_ someone was---especially considering how little the two of them had talked.

“Getting used to Mr. Broods-on-Gargoyles must’ve been a trip,” she said, feeling another twinge of sympathy.

Dick chuckled. “You could say that. Anyway, I’m wired to be loyal to a small family, and to protect their interests from the rest of the world. When Bruce first took me in, it wasn’t about making family.” He looked over at her, and the warmth in his blue eyes made her skin tingle. “But it’s grown a lot since then.”

And he was looking at her when he said it. Directly at her. He said family, and he meant _her._ Steph tried not to squirm, but a part of her wanted to throw her hands in the air, whoop, and run around a little. She wasn’t sure how much more positive reinforcement her heart could take before it just gave out on her.

She’d never seen him completely out of uniform and relaxed, so seeing him down to his sweats and a thin t-shirt in his own place felt weirdly intimate. He had an oversized jersey and a baggy pair of cotton boxers draped over his arm.

“These’re clean,” he said, his smile wide and sheepish. “I figured that you might want something more comfortable to sleep in than your undersuit. The bathroom’s the second door down the hall, and there’s plenty of towels if you want to shower off. Alfie keeps my linens well-stocked.”

“Does he seriously come over here just to clean up after you?”

Dick rubbed the back of his neck. He looked alarmingly like an awkward teenager.

 _“Honestly?_ I think he comes over here to escape Wayne the Elder and Wayne the Younger.”

“I can’t say I blame him,” she laughed, imagining the butler hiding out in Dick’s barely lived-in penthouse. “They both provide people with six hundred percent their daily quota of frustration. Is it genetic? It has to be genetic.”

“The theory has merit,” he agreed wryly. Dick handed her the clothes, his warm hand brushing hers.

His fingers were rough from a lifetime of training, knuckles wide and worked. Steph’s mouth went suddenly unexpectedly dry.

And Dick froze. For half a beat, he seemed to lock up---then he remembered himself and quickly dropped the clothes in her hands. His movements were sharp and quick, almost flustered.

“If you, uh,” Dick said, taking a step back toward the door. “If you need anything, you know where I’m at. Get some sleep, okay? Bruce’ll want to debrief us later, so you should get some sleep. Here. Okay?”

There was no way that she was imagining that. She didn’t know what to make of it, but they’d crossed over into a territory that she didn’t know how to name. He was almost a completely different person than the man she’d met at the beginning of the night---but in a weird way, he was more like she’d always imagined him to be. Everything that she’d known about Dick Grayson had come from training tapes and Tim’s many, many stories. Dick at the club had been Batman.

But this was just Dick. And it felt a lot like he was awkwardly trying to make up for something way bigger than almost beating her up during a bad trip.

“Okay,” Steph said, because she had _no idea_ what to do with that realization.

He smiled again, then closed the door behind him. Steph sighed, wondered for the bajillionth time if she was an eensy-weensy bit crazy, and started working her way out of her suit. The Batgirl suit wasn’t built to peel off easily---if it was easy to get off, every other villain out there would make a go for it and her secret identity. No, there were switches and boobytraps and failsafes just in the buckle of the utility belt, and the zipper was impossibly tiny and well-hid. She pulled her gloves off with her teeth, unzipped her boots, unfastened her cape, and took a few seconds to just breathe.

She was tired. She was sore. But she was _wired_ , and she knew that between the lingering adrenaline and the weird knots that’d been twisting up her guts since breakfast, she wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon. Which was just great. There was nothing better than playing debrief twenty questions with Bruce on no sleep---especially when the mission hadn’t been one he’d cleared her for. He’d give her an earful about procedure and endangering herself and blah, blah, blah. Batman 2.0 had told her she was a damn fine Batgirl, so she wouldn’t let overtiredness and Bruce Wayne’s glower-power kill that buzz.

Just thinking about it made her grin stupidly to herself. Bruce gave the silent equivalent of _that’ll do, Pig_ to his Robins and Batgirls when they were behaving, but Dick gave compliments. And not shockingly, Steph liked compliments.

With some patience and wriggling, she stripped off the rest of her suit. Steph was a little ripe from a night full of clubbing and crimefighting, but the idea of taking a shower---and smelling like Dick’s shampoo when she got out of it---made her stomach knot up even more. Borrowing his clothes was bad enough.

The jersey might as well have been a dress and the boxers were long, but they’d do. Padding to the lightswitch, she flicked it off and crawled into his huge, stupidly comfortable bed. Or she sunk into it, more accurately. The mattress was either space foam or mulched-up angels, firm with a bit of cradling give, and she suddenly realized _why_ people liked sheets with a high thread count. She moaned without meaning to, and it was borderline pornographic.

It was just such a _nice_ bed. The mattress was nice. The blankets were nice. The pillows were nice. They felt nice. They smelled nice.

Well, actually, they smelled like him. And it wasn’t a sweet smell, but it wasn’t a bad one. She rolled over onto her stomach, burying her face in the pillow and taking a deep breath. He smelled like some kind of musky-spicy cologne, the astringent soap that Bruce insisted on, and the witch hazel he used to bring down swelling and soothe mild cuts. The scent of his sweat was faintly sour, the reek of night terrors. She recognized it, because she’d woken up shivering and suffocating in her sweat-sticky pajamas only too many times over the years. She wasn’t surprised, but it made her kind of sad that even _he_ wasn’t exempt.

She took another breath, then realized what she was doing---how weirdly, awkwardly, embarrassingly personal it was.

 _Well, Steph, you’ve just crossed over into the creepy zone. You’re_ that person, _now. Congrats on being a big fat creep. Mom’ll be so proud that her baby has moved on from watching people through windows and is sniffing pillows._

She rolled over with a groan.

It wasn’t her fault, she decided. It wasn’t her fault that Dick was gorgeous. It wasn’t her fault that three years of celibacy had left her a little overly hormonal. None of it was her fault. He had internet fan clubs. People loved him. There was just something about him that demanded all of your attention. Mentally labeling him as _Dick Grayson: Sort of Tim’s Big Brother I Guess (???)_ had saved her from giving him that attention, because the last thing that she wanted to do was hurt Tim.

But sometimes, it felt like she watched out for Tim’s feelings a heck of a lot more than he watched out for hers. How many girls had he dated during their on-again-off-again-hey-I-died-I-guess-that-means-we’re-broken-up relationship? She hadn’t messed around with anyone, because he blew up at every perceived breach of his trust. She had to prove she was faithful, because he assumed a girl like her would sleep around---just like she had to prove that she was good, because he and Bats and God Himself assumed that she was more likely to follow in Daddy’s footsteps.

It’d always been an uphill battle with Tim. Steph had loved him, though, because for all of his faults, he’d given a crap about her. _That_ was why it was hard for her to do anything that might hurt him. And there was Babs to consider, too, and she wanted to hurt Babs even less than she wanted to hurt Tim.

Well, she decided, closing her eyes and drawing up her knees, there was always one way of handling sexual frustration that didn’t hurt anyone at all. Fantasy was safe, and she could think about those big, calloused hands and the crooked cupid’s bow of his mouth.

She could be content with her right hand. Rightie and her were in a fairly serious, committed relationship. That could be enough.

Right?

 

*

 

Sleep didn’t come easily to Dick. In recent months, it hadn’t mattered how exhausted he was---going to sleep and staying that way was a struggle. Even when he’d successfully managed that much, the nightmares haunted him. If anyone in Gotham _earned_ a good night’s sleep, it was the Bats, and yet they rarely got even a decent forty winks.

After twenty minutes of tossing and turning on the couch, he microwaved a mug of milk and honey and watched the six o’clock news on mute. Between the plastered-on smiles and the Botox freezing their facial features into a mask of stiff, wrinkle-free pleasantness, it was difficult to read the news anchors’ lips. Dick didn’t try too hard---long gone was the excitement of turning on the television after a night’s work to watch the people sing praises to the caped crusaders.

Since the unveiling of Batman Inc., Gothamites had been of two minds: the Batman was either overstepping his bounds, or he wasn’t doing nearly enough. Gotham was a fussy, violent, demanding, bipolar child, and though he couldn’t sleep, Dick was very tired of it.

He drank the rest of his milk and turned off the tv. He closed his eyes, sighed deeply, and tried not to think about the teenage girl in his room. That thought, like her, was off-limits.

But he woke up what felt like five minutes later, dragged out of sleep by the sensation that someone was watching him.

Stephanie was kneeling on the carpet beside the couch, leaning over him.

“Need something?” Dick asked, when she didn’t say anything. The bedroom had light-blocking curtains, but he’d never thought it necessary to install them in the living room. The blinds were good, but not great. Even closed, they let long slats of apricot sunlight into the room. It haloed her mess of unkempt blond hair, illuminating the outline of her body in the thin jersey.

The shadows really flattered some people, because it was easier to hide marks and imperfections in the dark. But even though he could see her scars much more clearly, he found himself thinking that Steph was best viewed in direct sunlight.

“No,” she said quickly, then sucked hard at her lower lip. “Maybe. Yes? Kind of.” She shook her head. “No. Sorry. Ignore me. Did I wake you up? I didn’t think you’d be asleep.”

“Nah. I was just resting my eyes.”

“You were snoring, Dick.”

 _“Anyway,”_ he said, scrubbing a hand through his hair and stretching. “Don’t worry about it. What’s up?”

Steph looked at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Carefully, she wet her chapstick pink lips with the tip of her tongue. Then she leaned over him, planting a firm kiss on his mouth. Her coconut-sweat-sweet hair tickled his cheek and the hollow of his throat.

“I was getting a glass of water,” Steph said after she broke the kiss. She sat with her legs folded under her, nervous fingers bunched in the hem of her borrowed shirt. “But then I saw you all passed out, and I just---it made me laugh, okay? You’re the big bad Bat, but you look like a Disney princess when you’re asleep.”

“Oh.” Dick said, rather lamely. He kind of wanted to ask _which_ Disney princess, but that didn’t feel appropriate.

Steph stood, her face very red. She hugged her arms around her middle, like she didn’t know what to do with herself.

“Sorry. It’s just, I thought that earlier, you were kind of implying that you were game for this sleepover to be a _sleepover?_ And if that was me being super rusty at picking up on flirtation and misinterpreting everything, please disregard the last three minutes of your life, because I will explode from the sheer force of my embarrassment if you were just being nice. And you probably were just being nice, because you’re you and you’re nice.”

Dick sat up, shaking his head. His lips still tingled from her kiss, warm and faintly syrup-sweet.

“No, you’re right. I was, uh. I don’t know. Testing the waters.”

Because he hadn’t thought that she’d react. He hadn’t been able to convince himself that she’d believe him, considering what a lower-case-d-Dick he’d been at the beginning of the evening. It was strange for him, too. He’d started the night feeling like Steph was only a couple of rungs higher on the maturity ladder than Damian, and now he felt like an idiot for that. He’d fumbled with his delivery, awkwardly trying to get _hey, I recently realized that you’re a woman that I am kind of attracted to_ across. It wasn’t supposed to be this complicated.

But Bats kind of made everything complicated.

Stephanie fidgeted, her bare toes curling in the carpet. “And?”

“And the rules are the rules. You kissed Sleeping Bat Beauty awake, and according to the Disney formula, that means that we need to at least make an effort toward cutting away to a happily ever after. You really can’t argue with Disney logic.” Raising his arms, he mimed grabby fingers at her. “C’mere.”

She hesitated, then sat on the small space on the edge of the couch. He rolled his eyes.

“I said _c’mere,”_ he repeated, and dragged her closer. She straddled him, sitting squarely on his stomach.

“Better?” Steph asked.

“A much better view,” Dick agreed, lightly resting his hands on her knees. “Comfy?”

"Mmhm. Wow, you are such a friggin’ _man,"_ she mumbled under her breath as she followed the bulge of his biceps with curious fingertips.

He quirked an eyebrow at her, folding his arms behind his head. "Should I be offended...?"

"Oh!” Steph’s blue eyes flew wide. “Oh. Crap. That was not supposed to be said with the outside voice."

"Still working on the monologging?"

Her cheeks stained a hot cherry pink.

"I'm still perfecting the _internal_ part of internal narration."

Steph was a comfortable weight on his stomach, leaning back against his bent knees. He hadn’t been kidding---the view was pretty great.

"Fair enough. It's a process, believe me. So the question is, am I 'such a man'---" That got bookended by finger quotes. "---in a good way or a bad way?"

"A good way. Definitely a good way. I mean, you've got the deep voice, and the chest hair, and the _armpit_ hair---which okay, I know, weird thing to get hung up on, but I feel like I need to congratulate you on your pubescence. And your hands. They're just." She itched her flushed cheek, bubbling over with a giggle that was nothing but nerves. _"Manhands."_

"All the better to manhandle you with, my dear," Dick grinned, pulling her down on top of him. She fit well in his arms, sprawled over his chest and belly. She was smaller than Babs, way smaller than Kory. Not as busty, and not as lean. There was no mistaking her for any of the women he'd been with before, civilian or superhero, human or otherwise.

"Let me get this straight,” he said, gesturing between them with a roll of his wrist. “You're all over my manliness because you haven't been with an older man before?"

Her formerly-pink cheeks deepened into crimson.

"I used to have a thing for older guys. Dean was nineteen, and puberty had bludgeoned him until his brains fell out. He was the last guy that I..." She squirmed a little on him, her eyes finding all sorts of things to look at that weren't _him._ "Before Tim. Because Tim and I never did much of anything. My, um. Babydaddy was my last. But I haven't---you know. Since Dean. So."

Dick’s eyebrows arched in surprise. "Not at _all?"_

"Between being Robin, dying, spending a year in Africa, and juggling my freshman year with Batgirling it up? My dance card has been kind of full."

Dick didn’t really know what to say to that, so he sidestepped.

"You know, I kind of wish I'd gotten to see you in action when you were Robin," he said after the lull in conversation started to tug at him. He didn't like it when she curled up with embarrassment. As far as he could tell, she was a naturally confident person who’d gotten a lot of it beaten out of her. That bothered him. "I liked what you did with the costume."

"Really?"

"Yeah.” He winked. “I'm only disappointed that you didn't bring back the scaly shorts."

"With my thighs?” She scoffed. “Please."

"I'm not seeing anything wrong,” Dick said, lightly running his palms along the outside of her thighs. He squeezed just above the bend of her knee. “Should I give 'em a closer inspection?"

Steph’s breath stilled in her chest. It was funny, really. She seemed surprised that he was _serious_ about his advances. He’d never had to convince someone that no, he wasn’t joking, and yes, he wanted to touch them. If he was being honest with himself, the thought had been curled up in the back of his head for most of the evening.

"Well,” Steph said slowly, pushing herself back up. “I guess you'd be the most qualified to say whether or not they're scaly shorts material. You _are_ the one who set the trend."

"If you're not comfortable..."

"No! I mean yes, I'm---this is just---not how I thought tonight would end.” She worried a hank of her long hair between her fingers, plucking distractedly at a tangle before tucking it behind her ear. “I'm not looking for a relationship, but hook-ups are not my thing. So, I’m like---I don’t know. I don’t know what is even happening right now."

“We’re sitting here, having a nice conversation and relaxing. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she repeated, almost uncertainly. “First shirtless conversation I’ve had with you. It’s going in my diary. Dear Diary: today, I punched an evil serial killer dentist in the mouth, and I didn’t even make one joke about dental hygiene. Then, I punched Batman. Then Batman bought me breakfast and invited me to a sleepover, so I went over to his swanky penthouse. And then I called him a Disney princess, and I started wondering why he’s even humoring me, Diary.”

“And then, Batman told me that he’d had an epiphany after being punched in the face,” Dick said, because he recognized a nervous ramble when he saw it. Good to see that he wasn’t the only one who turned to humor under pressure. She was a lot more like him than he’d realized. “And that he’d realized that he enjoyed being around me. He said that I’m a total knockout, and that he’s still trying to figure out how Tim survived dating me. Can you believe that, Diary?”

Stephanie blinked at him. “Really?”

“I’m not humoring you, Steph,” he said, as gently as possible. “I don’t mess around like that. I’m in the business of meaning what I say. Crazy concept, I know.”

“Okay. Well.” She shifted her weight---he had to bite down on a groan, because moving lower put pressure on body parts already interested in where this conversation was going. “And then, Batman and I had a shirtless heart-to-heart, and there was at least some kissing involved. It was a gold star case, Diary. Nine out of ten, would team up again.”

“Only nine out of ten?” Dick asked, his tone teasing.

“I’ll go back and edit it if I have to. It’s a tentative nine out of ten. We’ll see.”

He plucked at the bottom of her nightshirt, sliding his hands underneath. Getting the message, she obediently lifted her arms over her head. Dick pulled off the too-big Gotham Guardsmen jersey she’d borrowed from him, then took a moment to really _look_ at her. Her tits were more than a mere mouthful, her nipples soft rosy peaks. He cupped her breasts with both hands, feeling her nipples pull hard under his cold fingers. He took his time, mapping her out with his hands---from the line of her clavicle down to her hips and belly, measuring and memorizing the chunks that years of crimefighting had taken out of her. The thin, orderly line of the c-section scar was the only intentional mark on her body---everything else was ragged or puckered, gun shots and knife wounds and God only knew what else.

Dick had his fair share of scars. They were just a part of the life that they led, proof of all the times they’d bled for their cause. Gotham fed on its people, so protecting civilians from the slaughter usually meant offering their own blood.

Stephanie had more than a handful of scars that stood out as especially violent. She flinched when he traced a ragged slice across her ribcage and over her left breast, ending just short of her nipple.

Dick didn’t have to ask how she’d gotten it. The sexual nature of Black Mask’s sadism wasn’t discussed in polite conversation, because it was difficult to stomach the idea that he did what he did for jollies. Sionis had her for days, so she bore awful proof of his handiwork. He’d never forget that fact. He’d never forget it, because he remembered Alfred’s meltdown after Leslie had given them the bad news. A slug in the leg had benched Dick, leaving him with a high fever and an uncomfortably close brush with death. He’d made the mistake of mumbling about Steph when he’d finally gained consciousness again. Alfred’s unflappable exterior had fractured when he’d said her name. He’d wiped the tears away hurriedly, but Dick had seen them. Even muddled by a fever of a hundred and four, he’d known that something _bad_ had happened---bad enough that Alfred was courting a breakdown.

Bruce was the one who’d told him, though.

 _Stephanie is dead,_ Batman had said. Briskly. Clinically. In that hard, clipped way that meant he was _raw_ inside. The first time he’d said it to him, he’d had to have the cowl on. The second time, he’d had a glass of bourbon in his hands. People could say what they want, but the loss of her had hit him deep. _She was tortured by Black Mask. She didn’t survive the injuries he..._ inflicted _on her._

Everything that Bruce’s pause had implied still made Dick’s skin crawl.

He lingered over the cut across her breast.

 _“This_ is the reason you haven’t had sex in years, isn’t it?” Dick asked, feeling his stomach ball up and sink with the realization.

That flinch when he’d touched her said as much as Bruce’s pause had.

“It’s part of it. I never figured out what I’d say if a guy saw me naked,” Steph said quietly, covering a portion of the cut with her hand. “Couldn’t figure out a cover story that sounded believable. I thought about saying that I’d been in a car accident, but if the dude had a brain he’d know I was full of crap. Even an idiot can tell that some of these are bullet wounds.” She touched the round, slick patch of tissue on her shoulder. He could feel the mess of an exit wound on her back. “Best case scenario: he’d think I was a secret agent. Worst case scenario: he’d put two and two together and realize that I’m _that_ Stephanie Brown---the one that died, then got outed by her dear old dad on the evening news. I just...I can’t jeopardize Batgirl.”

Dick’s throat worked, too dry to swallow properly. No wonder she’d thrown herself into getting better with such drive, he thought tiredly. She tried to be the best Batgirl possible, struggling to prove that she deserved the title, because what would she do if they took it from her? Going back to a ‘normal’ life wasn’t an option.

She didn’t have anyone that she felt _safe_ around, did she? Tim had stopped talking to him about Steph ages ago. Barbara avoided discussing her. Batgirl was the last one that the Bats picked for their metaphorical kickball teams.

“Since I was a cop, I can chalk mine up to acts of heroism under fire,” he said, frowning. “I never really thought about how everyone else explained their vigilante wear-and-tear.”

“They must come up with good excuses,” she said, her narrow shoulders rolling inward. “I’m still working on finding one.”

Dick took her in. It wasn’t hard to pretend that she was someone he’d just met---his mental register for her had been _Steph Brown: Sort of Kid Sister I Guess (???)_ , so seeing her as an adult and a woman was a new thing for him. She wasn’t an underwear model, but she wasn’t some kind of scarred monstrosity, either. She was charmingly cute, funny and unassuming. When she smiled, he found himself smiling with her. He felt a lot more like Dick Grayson and a lot less like the Bat when he worked with her. Plus, she kicked a serious amount of butt. These were traits that he found very attractive in a partner.

“You don’t have to tell me anything. That’s the great thing about keeping it in the ‘family’,” he said, pushing himself up on his elbows. “I’ll help you with your cover story. Until you settle on one, we can---you know.”

“You haven’t been getting the kind of action you’re used to, have you?” Steph asked, leaning down to meet him. He slid his hands up the curve of her spine, feeling her muscles shift. “Between running around with the pointy ears and corralling your stab-happy Robin?”

Wearing the bat meant giving up on certain aspects of their personal lives. He wasn’t exempt to that rule.

“Okay. Look. The way I see it,” Dick said, brushing her hair from the crook of her neck. “We’re in a pretty bleak line of work. If you’re not careful, you can cut yourself off from humanity without even realizing that you’re doing it. Doing what we do is dangerous and lonely, but we’re not alone. If fooling around will make you happy, let yourself _have it._ If you’re just going with it ‘cause it’s been a while and you’re worried that you’ll be dismissed as a Bat-spinster, we can stop. I like you, but it’s your call, Steph. You deserve to be happy.”

Her eyes rounded. You would think that he’d told her she’d won the lottery, the way her eyes had gotten all shiny-bright. The corners of her mouth curved up into a smile---a big one, a real one, an infectious one. Without any warning, she flopped down on top of him, her bare breasts pressed between them, grabbed the sides of his face, and kissed him.

It wasn’t anywhere near being like the first kiss she’d given him. That one had been closed-mouthed, chaste but firm. This one was deep, the texture of her tongue against his, the funny pop of his jaw as it worked, the scrape of her nails as she knotted her fingers in a fistful of his hair. It was the kiss equivalent of going zero to sixty in two seconds flat.

How _had_ Tim survived Steph? When she had her confidence properly gathered, she zeroed in on what she wanted and went for it. She was aggressive---the good kind of aggressive.

The kind of aggressive that made his cock twitch and his stomach twist, at least. It was the kind of aggressiveness that he appreciated.

“I thought I didn’t want to,” she admitted between swift, hard kisses. “But it’s not that I don’t _want_ to. I just didn’t think that I should. Because you’re you---Batman-you---and I’m me---Batgirl-me---and we’ve already tangoed with Robins and Batgirls before, with mixed results. There’s Babs and there’s Tim and you know what, you could pretty much say that there’s Bruce and Damian, too, and they’re all going to judge me judgily, but I really want to do this---and not because of the whole me-Batgirl-you-Batman thing, because I don’t even want to _touch_ that---so I really don’t care.”

“Could you run that by me one more time, maybe?” Dick asked dazedly. “From the top?”

He felt Stephanie take a deep breath.

“Nobody has ever made it seem _okay_ to do what makes me happy. There was always a reason not to. If I didn’t want sex, there had to be something wrong with me. If I did want it, then I had to deal with figuring out what to say about my scars. Plus, it’s like---you never really get away from the big mistakes. Nobody lets me forget that I screwed up when I was fifteen. It’s always ‘don’t make that mistake again, Steph’ or ‘didn’t you learn anything, Steph’. Either way, I can’t win.”

“Yeah, well. That’s not how I work,” he said, and she kissed him again---happily, sloppily, vibrating with relief over such a small but stupidly significant thing.

He liked this Stephanie. God, she was so much prettier when she was smiling---so much prettier when she wasn’t trying to cover herself up. She was bright and alive, optimistic and stubborn. She reminded him of the parts of himself that he had to tamp down when he put on the big black cape. He could bring that part of himself out of storage, shake out the dust, and put it back on.

Wrapping one arm around her back and the other under her knees, he picked her up and carried her back to the bedroom, bridal-style. Their landing on the bed wasn’t exactly graceful---he more or less flopped on the rumpled comforter, stretching out over her as she laughed helplessly.

He kissed the hard edge of her hipbone through her loose cotton shorts. Curling a finger in the elastic waistband, he tugged them down until he found warm skin. Her hands wandered over his neck, back, and shoulders---sometimes fingertips, sometimes nails.

Dick really loved _people._ If Kory had left him with one thing, it was the understanding that sex was a form of communication. Bats were notoriously poor conversationalists, so sometimes he liked that he could get an honest rapport with someone just by touching them. He rarely had sex with no strings attached, because Dick got wrapped up in them---he couldn’t keep any significant distance between himself and the people that he loved.

He loved to touch. Loved to talk. And all that talking served a purpose---constant call and response, feedback on how he was being received by the world at large. He’d always be that little circus boy in shorts on some level, so he _needed_ to know what people wanted from him. Dick was a performer, through and through. He was wired to put on a show, and he did it because it made people happy.

But he couldn’t stop loving someone, just because he was with someone else. He tried, but he couldn’t. Monogamy and Dick Grayson had never really gelled properly. He loved deeply and openly, but he’d never been able to settle on loving only one person. And over the years, it’d made several women extremely unhappy. Tired of hurting the people he cared about, he’d drawn back. No more aborted attempts at serial monogamy. No more broken hearts. No more guilt.

But Steph wasn’t looking for anything that came with a label attached to it. It wasn’t a hook-up, but it wouldn’t be a relationship. And that? That middle ground was well within Dick’s comfort zone. She wanted to be treated well, wanted to unwind and feel good for a couple of hours, and he could give her that. Hell, she’d earned it.

He was aiming to earn a ten out of ten.

“Since it’s been a while for you,” Dick said, drawing back. “We’re going to take this slow, okay?”

She nodded, arching up to kiss him again. _Slow_ didn’t seem to be a speed that Steph was familiar with. He sighed into the kiss, relaxing. It’d been too long since he’d just...let go a little. Between the things being Batman demanded of him, the quashed nightmare-memories at night, and the toxin-induced nightmares during the day, he’d been worn impossibly thin. Smiling had become difficult.

He rolled the boxers down all the way, a warm knot of arousal bunching behind his navel when he realized how _wet_ they were. She’d soaked a girl-musky patch through them. He could smell it on his hands.

“Sorry,” she said, faintly embarrassed. She squeezed her legs together. “I...did a little warm-up. Or two. Before I worked up the guts to go out there and say something.”

“Warm-up?” Dick repeated, before what she meant clicked. His mouth might have hung open, just a little.

“Sorry,” Steph repeated, but he shook his head to cut her off.

“No.” He swallowed, with difficulty. “Don’t be sorry.”

She was dripping-slick because she’d been masturbating in his bed. Thinking about him. Wearing his clothes. The thought ran a scorching line from his throat to his cock.

“Dick,” Steph whispered. “Has anyone told you that you have an _awesome_ butt?”

“I think I’ve heard that once or twice, yeah,” he whispered back. “But thanks for noticing.”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed,” she said, wriggling a little lower so that she could explore more comfortably. “Believe me. It’s just the first time that I’ve thought it was anywhere near appropriate to bring up.”

Dick imagined how Bruce, Tim, or Damian would have reacted to overhearing that kind of compliment. Bruce probably would have ignored that he’d heard the cross-Robin flirtation, Tim would have a mild conniption fit, and Damian would more than likely call her a slanderous harlot (among other things). They had only too many reasons to keep this between the two of them. He wasn’t interested in regretting it in advance, because he might’ve needed it a little more than he’d allow himself to think about. He didn’t have as many safe people either, anymore. Dick had a habit of just sort of falling into relationships, people, and situations. He never looked before he leapt. He didn’t know how. He just jumped when his gut told him to and hoped he’d land somewhere soft at the end.

He left a wet, open-mouthed kiss on her breast; drew back an inch and breathed a sigh that cooled his saliva. She shivered reflexively, sucking her lower lip between her teeth. Fingers trailing over the curve of her waist, he pulled her closer to the edge of the bed. He knelt on the floor, the weight of her thighs resting on his shoulders as got comfortable between her legs.

And in his expert opinion, yes: she could easily pull off the scaly shorts. She could wear them, and she could do it well. Steph had some definite hips on her---not surprising, considering the baby and all---but he liked it. She was small, but she was solid. He could feel the lean muscles in her thighs tremble and tense as he spread her with his fingers, brushing lightly over her clit.

Dick had no qualms about diving right in there. Some guys didn’t like giving oral, but there wasn’t much about sex that he didn’t like. He liked the way people smelled and tasted and moved. He liked how different they could be. He liked that this was the absolute closest he could get to someone else, a physical and emotional connection. For him, he rarely had sex that was _just_ sex.

Dick traced a pretty little fold with the tip of his tongue, feeling her thighs tremble in answer. She guided him non-verbally, tensing when he sucked and circled her rosy little clit, jerking when he found just the right speed and stroke, and arching when he slipped in one experimental finger, then two.

He could _feel_ her react---she nearly boxed his ears when she came, muscles tight and trembling---but she was completely silent. Dick straightened, distractedly wiping his mouth in the crook of his elbow. He licked it without thinking, just because. Because he wasn’t tired of the taste of her yet. Because he wanted to suck her off his fingers. Just because.

“Hey. You okay?”

She nodded jerkily, her chest heaving. Steph had been actively muffling herself, he realized. She’d pressed her hand to her mouth, breathing raggedly through her nose. She’d been biting down on her fingers, leaving red welts and indentations.

Dick laughed. He couldn’t help it.

“You do realize that this room is completely soundproof, right?” He asked, patting her thigh with one hand. “You don’t have to worry about anyone hearing us.”

Steph pushed herself up on her elbows. “Oh---god, I didn’t even---I’m just so used to...when I’m, um, taking care of _lady business_...”

“Just imagine trying to rub one out when there’s the possibility that Bruce Wayne might walk in on you,” he said with a smirk. “And _that_ is why I wanted to soundproof my own place.”

She dissolved into giggles again, still trying to catch her breath, and covered her face in her hands.

“I can’t imagine that right now. I just can’t. My mom is bad enough.”

He grinned appreciatively. “That said, want to make some noise?”

“You bet your sweet ass I do,” she said, sitting up and wrapping her arms around him. She sucked hard kisses into his neck, pressure and teeth, and he knew that he’d have to wear a collared shirt tomorrow. It didn’t really bother him.

He thought about the bed---bed was good, bed was comfortable, bed was easy---but figured that they’d get there eventually. Dick hadn’t touched himself, so his gut tugged with urgency. Wait---the condoms were in the drawer. The drawer that was over there, away from her.

“On the pill,” Steph said quickly, as if reading his mind. “I figured college might get me back in the game, so. Precaution is my middle name. Actually, it’s not. But seriously, I don’t mess around with the chance of getting pregnant again. I want to make it out of my teens before having another baby.”

Sometimes, Bat paranoia was a beautiful thing.

The wall looked awful nice. He picked her up easily, one arm around her back and her thighs hugging his middle. Dick pinned her against the bedroom wall, bracing them with his hand. Jerking his shorts down, his breath stuttered in surprise when she grabbed his cock and rocked into him. She arched her back, gasping.

Yeah, she had _no_ idea how to take anything slow. That was probably a good thing. He wasn’t very good at taking things slow, either.

“So tight,” he groaned, pulse thumping in his ears. “God, Steph.”

If she hadn’t been so goddamn _wet_ , he would’ve felt bruised. She fluttered and pulled around him; Steph squirmed with a high, thin whine.

“C’mon,” she said impatiently, her breath hot against his throat. _“Please.”_

She said please and everything. He was only too happy to oblige.

The first couple of thrusts were shallow---he wanted to pace himself, wanted to make sure he didn’t hurt her---but she’d taken him up on his offer to make some noise. He didn’t have to ask her if it was okay, didn’t have to ask her what she wanted, because she told him with throaty-warm groans and shaking fingers. He was just as mouthy, just as loud, because she seemed to be as competitive in bed---well, up against the wall, technically---as she was in crimefighting. The louder and more creative he got, the louder and more creative she got.

And it was _fun._

“Those Daisy Dukes,” he grunted, “You need to---to wear those again.”

 _“Mmh---_ considering I---I cut up my only pair of jeans to make those?” Steph laughed breathlessly. “Mom’s gonna kill me.”

He found an even rhythm, hips rolling. Dick breathed in the muskier coconut sweat of her hair, just because. Because she liked how she smelled and tasted and felt. Because he liked how he felt. Because it _could_ be that simple.

“C’moooon,” she urged him again, her nails digging ten sharp lines down his back. Steph bucked her hips against him, meeting his thrusts with hoarse little growls. “Not gonna break, hero. Faster---I need you to---”

Straightening with her, Dick cleared the junk off the low dresser with a sweep of his arm, then dropped her pretty heart-shaped ass down on it. Her head hit the wall with a thump---he drew back, worried---but she laughed with gleefully loud abandon. Gripping her thighs, he spread them and dove back into the trembling-slick heat of her with a delicious slap of flesh meeting flesh.

Stephanie laughed and gasped and moaned and swore into his kisses. It was aggressive, but there wasn’t any real aggression behind it. It was _playful._ He wasn’t trying to drain the ugliness out of himself, wasn’t trying to get anything out of his system. When was the last time someone had tried to make him happy? The role of Robin had always been to give Batman light and levity. Though he was his Robin, Damian didn’t fill that role. He couldn’t, since he was every bit as damaged as his father, so Dick was a Batman that had to struggle to keep his own light burning.

He hadn’t done a very good job of it, but who could blame him? Finding happiness for yourself by yourself was difficult.

But Steph really had been Robin, and a part of her she still was. Maybe this wasn’t as much about her as he’d let himself believe. Maybe she’d seen a Batman sliding too far into the dark, and the Robin in her hadn’t been able to stand it. She’d called him on his crap. She’d bullied him a little. She’d made him let go of all the anger he’d balled up inside himself, and that was what Robin _did._

He should know. He’d been the one to set the trend.

Wisps of her tangled hair stuck to her face and neck; he tasted salt and cheap lotion and the faintly chemical tang of the inside of her cowl when he mouthed the thin skin over her throat. Bracing a knee on the dresser, he lifted her hips to hit a new angle. Judging from her shriek, it was a _good_ one. A couple of shallow, precise strokes later, she arched, trembling and tight, and wailed his name. He held her as she shook and _wrung_ him to a gasping orgasm that felt like a swift punch to the spine.

The blackout curtains kept the room dark, but it was a warm, murky kind of darkness. The air was musky-thick with the smell of them, and he took in deep lungfuls of it as his breathing slowed. Her skin stuck lightly to his where they met, and though he was hot and sweaty, he wasn’t all the interested in moving away from her. Dick picked her up again, bonelessly lax, and moved them to the bed.

“On a scale of Bruce Wayne to ten, how okay are you with cuddling?” Steph asked, her voice slightly hoarse. She stretched, arms over her head, then went limp. She smiled a full, satiated smile that said _you did good, big guy_.

Dick snagged one of the pillows with his toes---contortionism had many applicable uses---tucking it under their heads. Then, he rolled over onto his stomach, draping a heavy arm and leg over her.

“Little known fact: cuddling is the only natural threat that the wild Flying Grayson has in his habitat. Not much else can make me sit still.”

She rolled into him more, completing their sticky, slightly disgusting tangle of scarred limbs.

“I’ll make a note of that. If I ever decide to hunt the wild Flying Grayson again.”

“You good?” He asked with a wide grin. It came easily, once again natural. Hopefully, it’d last longer than the afterglow.

If it didn’t, maybe they’d just make this a thing until his smiles stuck.

“Are you kidding? There has to be at least four or five more surfaces in this room that we could try. _You_ can’t be done already,” she huffed indignantly, giving him an exaggerated frown. “You can’t be _that_ ripped and bendy and only good for one round.”

His hand wandered back to the curve of her hip, just because. Because he liked the shape of it, and the solidness of her. Because it felt good, and because she was ticklish.

“I’m letting you know right now that I’m _not_ settling for anything less than a ten out of ten,” he said solemnly, tilting her head up with a hand under her chin. “So how about you just let me know when I’ve earned a gold star?”

“I’ll keep you posted on the results,” she smirked, and kissed him.

 

*

 

“Good evening, Richard,” Alfred said, setting a meal tray on the bedside table. The sharp clink of cutlery jostling is what woke Dick up---he basically startled awake, sucking in half a gasp. It wasn’t often that he slept that deeply. Usually, the prickle of a shadow falling over him could wake him, but Alfred had managed to open the door, come into his room, and lean over the bed without alerting him. Then again, Alfie could shame a ninja with his skills. “I hope you’ll forgive me for ignoring your request to wake you before noon. I thought that you would prefer to sleep in, all things considered.”

Dick felt punchdrunk, groggy from sleeping too hard. That wasn’t a problem that he usually had---hell, he could barely remember the last time he’d managed to catch more than four hours of sleep at a time and have it be actually restful. He stretched underneath the covers, groaning. His foot brushed a warm, smooth calf, and he realized that he wasn’t the only one who’d slept in. Spooned up against his back, Steph was lost in the deep covers.

Dick very carefully, very discreetly pulled the comforter up and over Steph’s head when the old butler had his back turned. He tried his best to look unassuming and completely innocent.

Alfred smiled indulgently.

“I’ve already seen your visitor. I brought her a meal as well, if she chooses to stay a bit longer.”

Dick sighed, rubbing a hand over his face.

“Think we can just...not tell Bruce about this?”

“You wound me, young master. I wouldn’t _dream_ of lowering myself to petty gossip.”

The talking---or being submerged underneath the heavy blankets---woke Steph up. Her arm went around him automatically, and she curled up closer to him. She tugged the covers down from over her head with a wide yawn.

“‘Morning, Dick,” she murmured drowsily. “‘Morning, Alfred.”

“It’s a quarter past five in the evening, Miss Stephanie, but I appreciate and return the sentiment nonetheless,” he said, crisply amused.

It took Steph a few seconds to visibly come up to speed---and when she did, her eyes flew wide. She goggled at the butler, then at Dick, registered the nakedness of two out of three parties, and sunk a little deeper under the covers.

“Oh. Alfred! Hi. Can we pretend I’m not here? Because I don’t even know how I got here.”

“The _Bat signal,_ I’d imagine.”

Steph smothered a laugh with her hand. “Something like that.”

“As I was just explaining to Master Richard, I have no intention of sharing this information with anyone. You are both adults capable of making your own decisions,” Alfred said, a twinkle in his eyes. “Frankly, my dear, I’ve been of the opinion that he was in dire need of a good shag for quite some time. I hope you’ve had a pleasant evening.”

Dick groaned, his face in his hands. Steph burst out laughing, turning into the pillow to muffle herself.

“Now, if you’ll both excuse me,” Alfred said, clasping his hands behind his back. “I must go invent a catastrophe sufficiently large enough to waylay Master Bruce. He is on his way here to discuss last nights’ activities with you, and you must shower first, at the very least.”

“Thanks, Alfie,” Dick said, sitting up and snagging one of the sandwiches from the tray. He demolished it in a couple of bites. Unsurprisingly, he’d worked up quite an appetite.

“Think nothing of it,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

“I want to be Alfred when I grow up,” Steph said, more or less rolling over into his lap so that she could reach the sandwiches. He smoothed his free hand over her bare back, avoiding new bruises and scratches.

“Same,” he said, with feeling. Since time is of the essence, what say we do the smart thing and shower together?”

“I like the way you think,” Stephanie smirked, taking a large bite of her sandwich. “But won’t it be kind of suspicious if I’m here _on time_ , and we both have wet hair?”

Dick kissed the round of her shoulder, finding a dusting of pale freckles that he hadn’t noticed before.

“Honestly?” He said, smiling apologetically. “He doesn’t usually come to me for debriefs. He probably already knows. He’s...him.”

Steph gave an exaggerated groan between bites. “He is vengeance! He is the night! He. Is. _Batcockblock.”_

“There’s nothing he can really say about it, you know?” Dick said, and tucked into the remaining sandwich. Roast beef and provolone on rye---high protein and delicious, as befitting the master culinary skills of Alfred Pennyworth. “I don’t regret this. Do you?”

“Are you kidding?” Stephanie finished her sandwich and sat up, stretching. “Bruce can make as many disappointed faces at me as he wants to. The last time someone told me not to get close to a Bat, it was my dad. He threatened to kill me. If I didn’t listen to him---and believe me, if he could’ve, he would’ve made good on his threat---why the heck would I listen to someone who has a solid no-kill policy?”

She said it cheerfully, easily, like fathers threatening to kill their disobedient daughters was just one of those quirky little parts of growing up.

Dick had to make himself push that thought aside, because it needled the soft spots between his ribs.

“C’mon,” he said, peeling back the covers and giving her a roast-beef-and-morning-breath-on-rye kiss. “Let’s get scrubbed up like decent adults before he gets here.”

When Bruce arrived, they were belting a decidedly off-key duet of ELO’s “Don’t Bring Me Down”. Decent adulthood was something that they were still working on.

And maybe Bruce cleared his throat awkwardly and told Alfred that he was going to go get a latté---even though he didn’t drink lattés, and Alfred’s lattés were fine enough to make Starbucks’ baristas feel ashamed of themselves. And maybe Bruce opted not to touch on the non-verbal current tethering Robin I and Robin IV. And maybe he noticed how they kind of drifted closer together, and how they smiled. And maybe he said nothing, because---just maybe---he understood his Robins a little better than anyone gave him credit for.

Or maybe he just got the picture from the warbling duet of _“Don’t bring me dooooown, BRUUUUUUUUCE”_.

 

*

 

Later that week, he got a letter in the mail. No return address, no explanation: just an envelope with his name on it, written in purple ink.

There wasn’t a note inside it. Just a sheet of gold star stickers.


End file.
